D.A. asks for state probe into CMS corruption accusations | Hour 2

So, CMS. What a mess. See, I'm seeing mess. Charlie Mecklenburg schools. Oh, the tumult. Now to be fair to the current CMS board of education and superintendent and the entire cottage industry of educrats, uh, that are siphoning off of, uh, what are they like? Pilot fish, right? Those are the ones that like float along next to the whale and just eat off the, the debris in its wake. Right. To be fair, these folks have been a sclerotic mess for about 25 years. Since I've been paying attention, I used to go and cover all the school board meetings, and we have not gotten to the point that we once had arrived at where a former superintendent at the time had to be restrained from lunging across a table to attack a school board member. So we haven't gotten there yet. I mean, we did get there like 20 years ago, but we haven't gotten there again, let me say. But it's getting spicy and we are paying the price. Literally, we are picking up the tab for CMS's dumbassery and corruption. By the way, if you're hearing all of this stuff for the first time about the contracts and about the suspension of the superintendent and now the accusations flying all around, and you're wondering, gosh, this sounds an awful lot like corruption. And I can tell you there is a reason why it sounds like that is because that's what it is. That's what the 244-page memo that the CMS superintendent, Dr. Crystal Hill, that's what she's outlining. She doesn't come out and use that word, but that's what she's outlining. Okay? I read through... Her memo, most of it, all right, so it's 244 pages, but there's, she included in that PDF, there's all of the contracts and stuff, and she's got everything documented. But she goes through a timeline, and that takes up about 14 pages, 13 pages of a timeline, starting in the school year 24-25. Okay, so this is two years ago. This is when all of this started. And we have seen little bits and pieces of this story bubbling up for the last year or so, right, since all of this stuff started. And then it kind of, you know, culminated in the suspension of the superintendent. And then her return right before school started. And like her not answering questions in front of the media and the school board members not answering questions of the media and them totally promising to put out their report about what their investigation found into the superintendent, why she was allowed to return. That's promised by the end of the month. I mean, we'll see now. Remember also a couple of weeks ago, we had the North Carolina state auditor, Dave Bullock on the program. And we had him on. We had booked him to talk about something else, but it just so happened that that was the day that the superintendent was reinstalled or taken off of suspension and allowed back on the job. She basically had a two-month vacation while they were doing this investigation into her management practices. We don't know what specifically they were investigating because they haven't told us. And apparently didn't really tell her much either as well. So not really sure what they were looking at and whatever. And so I just threw it out to the auditor, and I was like, I know you guys run a tip line, so consider this a tip. Are you aware of what's happening here with CMS and these contracts and such? And he said, oh, yeah, we are aware. And she mentions the auditor in her timeline. She mentions this, that the auditor is looking into all of this stuff too. That's later in the timeline. But I'm going to go through this timeline because if you are a teacher, an administrator, you are an elected official, if you are a parent, if you are a student, or if you are just a taxpayer, this should be of great importance to you. What did I say in the last hour? If you don't have good and competent people stand up and help to lead institutions in the community, you will be governed by bad, incompetent people. And that's what we are seeing at CMS. You have this behemoth of a government operation. And whenever you have a large government operation like this, You're going to have people that attempt to siphon money out of the operation. Look at all of the fraud in all of these states around the leering centers, the home health care centers, right? The what's the autism centers, right? Like all of these government programs, when you when you grow a government so large, you're talking hundreds of billions of dollars or even trillions of dollars in spending. You are obviously going to have people that see it as a store of value. And if you do not protect the store of value, it will be beset upon by parasites. That's what this is. In my opinion, reading through this timeline, that's what this looks like. Now, the superintendent does not come out and say she knows things when she doesn't know them. She makes very clear she's not aware of why this thing happened. She doesn't know this other part here, right? So she's not ascribing motives to people in all of these cases. She's pointing out, though, if you kind of read between the lines and you recognize what it is that she's spelling out, this is preferential contracts. That's what this is. That's what it looks like. that certain people on the school board have been funneling money to preferred vendors. Why? Don't know. Don't know. But I suspect it has something to do with the last school board election and the school board meeting on Tuesday night where there apparently is going to be an effort to to boot the school board chair, Stephanie Sneed, former head of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Black Political Caucus. I don't know if the vice chair takes over. He was also, I think he was like the education committee chairperson or something in the Black Political Caucus as well. That's D. Rankin, right? So you've got the chair and vice chair that are part of this organization that That is a bit of a kingmaker in Charlotte politics because they're very influential in the Democrat primary. They turn out votes. And then you've got one of the vendors, one of the contractors or consultants who was engaging in political activity to try to unseat board members that questioned his contract and was successful. knocked out the three board members that voted against his contract. Two of them lost, and the third retired. So this looks like corruption, and I think it looks like this kind of corruption because it is. That's the logical conclusion to draw from all of this, in my opinion. Maybe there's some other information that comes out. But until some of these school board members start talking, start explaining themselves, we are not going to know for sure. Unless, of course, we get some criminal investigations, which I think at this point may be warranted. All right, we're going to start running through this timeline up next. All right, for over a year now, you've heard me talking about Create-A-Video, great local company in Mint Hill that has helped more than 2 million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS tapes, film reels, and slides into lasting keepsakes. Creative Video is helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling. Introducing group travel videos, perfect for family reunions, church mission trips, group vacations, destination weddings, student trips, senior adult groups, sports teams. I mean, really any gathering of people that you care about that's traveling together. 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Group Travel Videos, from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for a lifetime. Alrighty, so as I began my topic, I'm not saying that this is because I started talking about this, but, I mean, it is kind of a coincidence that The Mecklenburg County District Attorney put out a press release requesting the State Bureau of Investigation to probe financial irregularities within CMS. Okay, so it was coincidental because the DA, Spencer Merriweather, has a quote here that says, last month I asked the North Carolina SBI to conduct an informal inquiry into reports of alleged financial irregularities within transactions involving CMS. Okay. So he asked for this last month. It wasn't because I started talking about it this hour, but I mean, it could have been like, he may be, he probably knew I was going to talk about it. And that's why he did. No, probably because people went to him and they said, uh, Dude, there is some shenanigans going on in CMS. As a result of that informal inquiry, I have, in my discretion under North Carolina general statute, requested the SBI initiate a formal criminal investigation related to those irregularities. At this time, this investigative request is not limited to a single party or entity, but it does seek a review of potential violations of state law or any other potential violations of criminal law related to legally prohibited transactions. He goes on to say, as with any inquiry, a request for a criminal investigation is simply an ask for a formal determination of facts that and a search for evidence that can be applied to relevant criminal law. A request for an investigation is not itself a confirmation of the existence of wrongdoing, nor should it be understood as the state's tendering of a formal allegation of malfeasance. So in other words, just because we're asking for an investigation because we think there's some shenanigans going on doesn't mean that shenanigans are actually occurring, okay? We're not innocent until proven guilty. Just want to make that clear. We're not alleging anything at this point. We're just asking for a formal investigation because the informal one apparently gave us enough evidence that we should ask for a formal one. Accordingly, for the duration of this investigation, in strict adherence to the North Carolina rules of professional conduct, neither I nor any member of my office will offer any further comment on this matter. Let me see. Is there another page here? There is another page, but this is just the letter to the SBI requesting the formal probe. So, all right. So now what we, so that's, so we have two, we have two government bodies now under investigation by the SBI in Mecklenburg County. Gosh, we are, We are doing some bang up work here, people. This is just fantastic. Really, you know, really buffing the shine here on the the Queen City Crown. Right. We got now we got the probe here of CMS. And the whatever happened to the probe, the investigation into our sheriff, Gary, not my fault, McFadden. Remember that right before the election, there were all these allegations that he should be removed from office. And, and so then the, the County attorney and the district attorney, and they were like, we're not, we're not seeking his removal. They're the ones that would have to seek it or a judge would have to do it. It's like, we just don't know if these allegations are true. So now we have to have the SBI investigate. Not sure what what's become of that. So we have now two, sbi probes of the sheriff's office and the mecklenburg county or the charlotte mecklenburg county schools cms do we have anything going on in the city is the city under probe by the sbi i don't well yes the uh the transit system they're they're yeah they're getting a uh they're getting an examination from the state as well. The auditor's office, they've been going over that stuff. I don't think the SBI is involved in that, but yeah, I mean, if you count the, if you count the auditor and the cat system, like we're like three for three here. I mean, this look for a very, very long time, our local leadership wanted to be world-class. We have arrived. Look at us world-class city. being investigated at all of our local levels of government. This is just awesome. I say, people, this is a choice. I'm going to go into the timeline. I said I was going to start the timeline, but then I saw the press release from the DA's office, so I had to bring you that breaking news. SBI being asked to probe the CMS contracts that are the subject of what the superintendent of CMS calls an effort to extort her into resigning. And it was over these contracts to a particular couple, basically husband, wife team from the text line. The Hellion says, since Charlotte is all one party, now it feels like since there's no one to tear down from the other party, they're leveraging each other. Um, Look, this is one of the problems that you run into in any governing system that has, you know, two different, like you've got the partisan elected bodies, right? In any one of these systems where one party completely controls, when there's no voice of dissent from inside the party on the body, right? So you look at the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners and they're all Democrats, right? So you don't have somebody from the Republican Party that is in the meetings, that they're worried about divulging certain things to the public and the media, right? So they behave badly. And then you have all of the, so if you think about it in sort of levels, right, at the top level, you've got the elected body, but then underneath that, you've got like the political parties and then below the parties, you have all of the different, you know, caucuses and the groups and the nonprofits, all the activists, right? You have all of those people that make up the party. Well, those people fight each other because they're trying to get whatever their particular project or agenda is. They want that to be represented at the party level. And then the party wants that stuff to be represented at the governing body level, right? Well, at the activist level, the lowest level there, people get their feelings hurt. Over really stupid stuff, by the way, like it could be the most trivial thing. I remember years ago. Somebody got their feelings hurt. I won't say who, but they got their feelings hurt because they were not identified. Their name was not recognized when they went to visit a particular church. They went and visited a church as an elected official, and they were not recognized for their presence there. And they were wanting to have their name called out so all of the congregation would hear them, hear that they are there. That did not happen, and so they were upset about it. And they held a grudge. Little things like that. So that happens at the activist level. That then percolates up. into the party. So now you've got them fighting each other for control of the party apparatus. Then if they get up into the elected positions, now they bring with them those grudges. And if you've got another political party there that you can argue against and everything like that, then that grudge doesn't mean so much because you're still trying to fight the quote enemy over there, the other party. Well, when there is no other enemy on the dais at the County commission level, now those grudges, now they mean more. And the, and the thing is when you are inside that one party, Everybody in the party knows each other or almost a lot of them know each other. They do work with each other. They know where the bodies are buried. They are privy to way more information because they are all of the same party. Then say a Republican county commissioner would be privy to because they're not they're not a Democrat. If there's a Republican on the county commission, they would not be part of the Democrat party. So they would just not learn of these things. They would not know all of the personal information. and the backstories, unless there's some Democrats that tell that Republican, right? Because they're just moving in different political circles. And this works the inverse way too. If you have a body that's completely Republican controlled, same way. This is how you end up with these kinds of corruption stories. This is why this happens. There isn't anybody there sitting in the closed session meetings and saying, hey, wait a minute. Why are you giving this contract to some guy? whose wife, or sorry, you're giving the contract to a firm run by a woman whose husband works for the superintendent. Like, what's up with that? Why are we giving these contracts? Because that's what we're talking about, contracts. So now it's on Democrat members at the school board, right, to call out fellow Democrats on the school board. And that becomes difficult to do because you're all in the same political party and you don't want to tarnish the party brand. You want to keep this stuff in-house. You don't want to air all this dirty laundry. But this has broken containment. This story has broken containment. And now you have the DA asking for the state Bureau of investigations to take a look. You've got the state auditor sniffing around. Don't know how long it's going to take for them to figure it all out. But the superintendent crystal Hill seems like she's got a pretty good read on what's been going on. And she publishes a memo, 244 pages long with all the contracts and email correspondence, like, as the kids would say, the receipts. She has brought the receipts. I will get to the timeline. I promise. In fact, here, I'll start. School year 24-25. CMS had a contract with a company called S-Y-D-K-I-M-Y-L. I don't know if it's an acronym. It's all in capital letters. Sid Kimmel, I guess, is how they may pronounce that. I don't know. Sid Kimmel. That's what I'm going to call it. So they have a contract with Sid Kimmel to provide consulting and coaching through the academic services division of CMS. Okay. The academic services division. You're going to hear that often. This division apparently is involved in a lot of this stuff. I'm not accusing anybody in the division of doing anything. I'm just saying like everything seems to be routed through this academic services division. Sid Kimmel is a local, educational consulting company that is owned by Kimberly McGregor. Kimberly McGregor is married to Racky McGregor. That name, Racky McGregor, pops up throughout all of this stuff. He is all over this stuff. So that's where we'll start. All righty, so I got 13 pages or 12 pages now of the timeline, and I'll re-rack this at the beginning of the next hour. So you got Kimberly McGregor, who runs the consulting company Sid Kimmel. Her husband's name is Racky McGregor. I've been informed I'm mispronouncing that, but I choose not to believe that. It's spelled R-A-K-I. And there's only one Rocky. That's Sylvester Stallone in the documentary Rocky. Okay, so the contract that, so Sid Kimmel, the company, already has a contract with CMS. And then Mr. McGregor gets a contract for oversight and leadership involvement in key initiatives, such as the housing initiative, known as at home in CMS. You remember what that is? This is the teacher housing idea. Remember a couple of years ago, they were like, Hey, we have a great idea. How about we build housing for teachers like at the school or near the school? Yeah. Cause that doesn't open up millions of dollars for potential grafting, right? So he's involved in that oversight and leadership involvement in the housing initiative at home, as well as a student mentorship program. CMS began paying Mr. McGregor $ 13, 000 a month under terms of the contract, which was scheduled to expire June 30th, 2025. This is all according to the superintendents. Mr. McGregor was considered an executive in residence, an executive in residence, and was part of the superintendent's cabinet team. Okay? So he's got a seat at the table with the superintendent. His wife, running Sid Kimmel, she has contracts with CMS as well. Then you've got the academic services division, submitted staff. an item on the school board agenda in March of 2025, um, a request for the board to approve a $ 175, 000 increase in the existing Sid Kimmel contract. The increase was intended to allow Sid Kimmel to provide new services. A week later, the Sid Kimmel contract was moved from the consent agenda to, uh, an action agenda. And the difference there, why this matters is consent is usually not debated. The consent agenda at the school board and city council, county commission consent agenda items. There's like a whole bunch of them. And you usually just approve all the consent stuff all at once. But this item was moved to the action portion, the action items, which means now you're going to have a discussion about it. Okay. March 2025, board members then submitted their questions. Staff answered their questions. Within the ensuing week, some Board of Ed members and members of the public raised concerns that there might be, there was a conflict of interest because Mr. McGregor was working as chief executive in residence and his wife's company was directly benefiting from a service contract. Then they vote on the increase to the contract and it passes five to three. Board members voting against the contract easily, none, and Klein. Three board members voted against that. They were then targeted for removal from office. I'm telling you that. That's not part of this timeline yet. In March of 2025, These three board members said no to this contract, and then they were ousted. One retired, but cited all of this stuff as one of the reasons why she was stepping aside. Fast forward a couple of months, May of 25, the chairwoman, Stephanie Sneed, Asked the superintendent to speak with the county manager regarding a one-time allocation from the county's fund balance for contracted services to support social emotional learning, or SEL. This is, SEL is sort of the euphemism. It's the nice way of kind of injecting the critical race theory stuff into the curricula. This request, Crystal Hill says, was unusual because it was not raised during the budget process and because Chairwoman Sneed cannot unilaterally determine budget priorities or requests. She brought this request to me after I presented my budget recommendation to the Board of Ed. So here you have the chair telling the superintendent, go to the counties. and ask the county for more money, or ask the county, yeah, for this money for this contract. And that is outside the normal process. Red flag. All right, that'll do it for you. this episode thank you so much for listening i could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast so if you'd like please support them too and tell them you heard it here you can also become a patron at my patreon page or go to the pete calendar show.com again thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while i'm gone